Proper Coffee Storage
There are many suggestions for storing coffee to maintain freshness. One of these suggestions is to freeze your coffee beans or ground coffee. Does this work? Let’s discuss this.
People have been freezing foods to way back. A diverse selection of foods can be frozen. There’s bread, meat, fruits, veggies, and butter. The nutritional value of many foods can also be maintained by freezing. Coffee, however, isn’t as likely a candidate for storage in the freezer.
Coffee has four main enemies against freshness: air, heat, light and moisture. It would seem that freezing won’t harm coffee’s freshness. However, appearances can be deceiving.
You should know that coffee beans are roasted beforehand. Coffee beans are also porous. A freezer can also contain odorous foods. Coffee beans, being porous, can absorb the flavours of the other foods in the freezer. Flavoured coffee beans are delicious, but not if the flavour is garlic or seafood.
Coffee beans can also absorb moisture. Moisture can cause deterioration and loss of flavour. Every time you take your coffee out of the freezer and pop it back in, the beans absorb moisture. If you have no other choice but to freeze your coffee, then make sure you do it only once. Taking it in and out of the freezer many times will not give you good coffee.
Freezing coffee beans will break down their oils. The oil has flavour too. The coffee beans lose flavour when the oils are broken down, and flavour is very important.
All in all, freezing is not an ideal way to store coffee. It’s best if you store coffee in a cool, dry place away from light. Freezing coffee is possible, and is best if you only freeze it once. Freezing again and again would affect your coffee’s flavour and quality, and you wouldn’t want that. Your best bet is to purchase only enough beans or ground coffee to supply you for 1-2 weeks. Enjoy the coffee at its freshest!
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